For Whom the Tears Flow
by JadziaKathryn
Summary: He was the most unique friend she ever had.


Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I can't claim ownership.

**For Whom the Tears Flow**

Lieutenant Commander Jenna D'Sora Hasborough begins every morning the same way: she watches the news vids while brushing her teeth and doing her hair. She has done that every morning since the _Enterprise_ crashed on Veridian III and she was transferred to the _Mayweather_. Her late husband, killed in the final battle of the Dominion War, used to observe that she brushed her teeth harder when the news was bad.

This morning, she very nearly choked on her toothbrush.

She sits alone at a table in the mess hall, staring into her cup of tea. It's Vulcan spice tea, supposedly soothing, but if asked Jenna couldn't describe the taste or even decide if she liked it or not.

She ran two security drills today just to get her mind off the news, but it is as though the news vid is on constant replay in her mind. Even Captain Saniv noticed, and she usually doesn't comment on the emotions of her officers. True to Vulcan form, Saniv had dropped the subject when Jenna made it clear she didn't want to talk about it.

"It's tea _leaves_ that are supposed to tell the future, Jenna, not the tea itself." She looks up and sees Heidi Schumann sitting down with a bowl of soup, trying to lighten the mood.

"It's not the future I'm thinking about," replies Jenna, draining the last of the tea. "Did you hear about the _Enterprise_?"

"Hasn't everyone?"

"Just about." Heidi tests the temperature of her soup while Jenna gets a second cup of tea. "It seems so strange that Commander Data-" she stops when she sees the look on her friend's face. "You served with him, didn't you?"

Jenna lets out a sad, ironic laugh. It's about the eleventh time she's been asked that today, but the first time she is willing to do more than nod. "I didn't just serve with him. Didn't I ever tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

She sits down and puts the tea in front of her. "For a brief time, I _dated_ him."

"What? You're not serious, are you?"

"I'm absolutely serious. It was a very short romance, though. I realized that I was only attracted to men who were unemotional. It was becoming a pattern."

"Thinking of Greg, I can't imagine that." Jenna's late husband, Greg Hasborough, had definitely not been unemotional.

"It was a long time ago, Heidi." She stops to calculate the years. "Actually, it's been twelve years, although it doesn't seem like it. Am I really that old?"

Heidi has pushes her soup to the side and leans in closer. Her brown hair dangles dangerously over the soup, and she brushes it back. "Never mind old. Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"By the time I was on the _Mayweather_ it had been four years. Then I met Greg, and it was just never important, I guess."

"And now he's gone."

"_Dead_." Jenna's voice is strong and somewhat angry, gaining volume as she speaks. "He's not just gone. It's not demise or destruction or obliteration or termination. It's _death_!"

Heidi concludes that she has obviously hit a nerve. "Jenna?" she asks carefully.

Energy spent, Jenna looks up weakly. She is glad that only a few other people are in the mess hall. "Yes?"

"Take a deep breath and a sip of tea, and then tell me what's going on."

She does as she'd told. "They weren't saying it on the vids. They won't say that he died. It's like he was just a fascinating machine to them."

Heidi isn't a counselor, but she is a doctor and an intuitive woman. "You think they're cheapening him, don't you?"

Jenna nods. "When I first transferred, we stayed in contact. Once Greg and I got serious, Data and I didn't talk as often, and then we got married and we hardly ever talked. He commed to send his condolences when Greg died, though. In the past year and a half we'd sent each other a handful of communiqués. Just as friends."

Heidi doesn't know exactly what to say, but she knows that the most important thing for her to do was listen. "It's natural to be upset when a friend dies," she prompts.

"But they won't say he's dead. And if he didn't die, then they're denying that he was ever alive."

"Which means…"

Jenna sips her tea and sighs. "I don't know, exactly. I just know that it's not right, and it's not true."

Heidi looks at her friend carefully. When Jenna doesn't say anything else, she takes a spoonful of her soup. It's cooling, but still warm enough to eat. After the third spoonful, she ventures a question. "Is this about you, or about him?"

"I don't know," Jenna confesses, but it is a feeble lie and she knows it.

"Yes, you do."

"Fine. I know. I don't want to talk about it."

Pushing Jenna too far isn't a good idea. She claims that the D'Sora temper is legendary once provoked. Heidi has seen it only directed at the Dominion, and it wasn't pretty. She has no desire to receive the brunt of it herself.

"Okay." Dipping her spoon in the soup, she tries to act casual. "What would you like to talk about?" Waresh slides in the door and begins to come over to the table Heidi is sharing with Jenna, who is staring into her tea. Heidi shakes her head. Waresh stands for a moment, his antennae flickering as if there's a breeze.

"What does this make me?" says Jenna suddenly, not looking up from her tea. In a voice barely above a whisper, she seems on the verge of bursting into tears. Understanding comes to Waresh, who finds a seat elsewhere. Jenna isn't aware of him at all. "It's all a jumble in my head. If he wasn't alive, then what was I doing dating him?"

"You said yourself that the news vids weren't true. I didn't know Data, but if you say he was alive, I believe you."

"Data was more alive than half the humans I've met."

"I can see that." Everyone in Starfleet knew of Commander Data's quest to become more human. Heidi sees how that could make him more alive than some flesh and blood humans.

"I'm a mess." Jenna feels like her thoughts and feelings are a knotted disaster. She wishes that Greg could be there, wishes that the Dominion who killed him had never existed, wishes that Data was alive, wishes that she could makes sense of everything she feels. Data's death has reminded her of Greg's death, the pain of which is still fresh. Losing Greg was more painful –he was her husband, after all- but it is too much pain, too much loss, too little sense. Despite the tears that have dripped into her tea, she gulps the rest. It's not like she notices the taste anyway.

"You don't need to have it all together."

"I like having it all together."

"I know," Heidi says. "But you're not the only person who will miss him. Why don't you ask about a memorial service?"

"It's been eight years since I saw him."

"That doesn't matter. He was your friend, wasn't he?"

Jenna smiles for just a second. "He was the most unique friend I ever had."

"Then you should. Come on. We'll go find out."

They stand up, dumping their dishes in the replicator. "Heidi?"

"Yes?"

"How far do you think the captain's eyebrow will go when I request a short leave for this?"

"She'll let you go, of course, but not before it hits two and a half centimeters."

The ghost smile comes back, and it remains on Jenna's face for a good five seconds this time. "I say an even three."


End file.
